It was almost midnight, after stress-testing far too many sitting positions on the couch, when I realized I had just spent my entire Saturday watching college football. This isn't an uncommon experience for me. I don't think I'm alone in this insanity, either. There are some people who do normal things on weekends, like gossip about their worst friends over $16 eggs before seeing "The Hunger Games." Then there are those of us who watch 12 straight hours of sports.

It's a maniacal devotion that makes even less sense at this point in the season. By now, college football's focus has narrowed to the national championship. (The equally compelling train wreck at Florida, which fell to lower-level Georgia Southern at home for its sixth straight loss, is another story.)

The sport has settled its spotlight on two teams: One is top-ranked Alabama, a 49-0 winner Saturday over another insert-opponent-here (Chattanooga). The other is No. 2 Florida State, which ripped Idaho into waffle fries, saucing the overmatched Vandals for 80 points to stay unbeaten. Both games were over as soon as their contracts were signed.

And yet Saturday served as an enlightening preview of the chaos of next season, when the four-team College Football Playoff replaces the current Bowl Championship Series model, bringing far more schools into national-title consideration deep into November. The rest of Saturday's results suggested a tantalizing idea: Even after college football's boom over the last decade, what if the sport's stock is still undervalued?

It seems strange to consider college football a growth industry given its recent risk factors. This regular season opened in August with the reigning Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel's eligibility called into question and ends this week with a Florida state's attorney deciding whether to charge Jameis Winston, the Heisman Trophy favorite, with a sexual assault that Winston has denied through his lawyer. Meanwhile, as the sport undergoes fundamental changes off the field, some schools have sweetened ticket deals to fill their stadiums, and other student sections are such ghost towns that developers are eyeing them for a row of McMansions.

What happened during the week this season was similarly contentious. There was the reaction to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's appointment to the College Football Playoff's selection committee in October, which made the He-Man Woman Haters Club look like feminists. And this month, a federal judge partially certified a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA, paving the way for current football and basketball players to collect a portion of the broadcast revenues they help generate—a boon for the critics of college sports who believe athletes aren't paid enough and coaches are paid too much.

Yet not even Nick Saban's defense can stop the demand for college football on television. Ratings for the weekly Southeastern Conference game on CBS this season were up 19% through last week, according to data compiled by Sports Media Watch. The network posted big numbers for Alabama's win over Texas A&M on Sept. 14, Alabama's win over LSU on Nov. 9 and other nationally resonant games that didn't involve Alabama as part of a deal worth $55 million annually—the TV-rights equivalent of thrifting for shoes and walking out in Louboutins.

The four-team playoff that begins next season figures to make regular-season broadcasts more valuable. If this week's schedule had been played against the backdrop of the College Football Playoff, for example, as many as 10 games would've been required viewing for the selection committee and its Sunday-morning quarterbacks.

The way No. 4 Baylor's offense froze in a 49-17 loss at No. 10 Oklahoma State would've bumped the Bears and shot the Cowboys into contention. No. 3 Ohio State, on the outside looking into the BCS championship, would be a sure semifinalist. No. 5 Oregon would be on the outs after ducking out of Arizona with a blowout loss, and No. 9 Stanford would be back in play. No. 8 Missouri would've kept its Final Four bona fides after beating Ole Miss, making its next game Saturday against Texas A&M as essential as the Iron Bowl between undefeated Alabama and one-loss Auburn.

These were only some of the games on national TV Saturday. None shook up the BCS title race. Yet there is a permanent indentation on my sofa that proves I still found myself watching them all. (Not in a row! I'm not that crazy. I went for a slice of pizza at one point.) They would've been that much tastier next season, in the playoff era, when every game with a top-10 team is loaded with title implications.

In other words, this was a glorified bye week for the most likely BCS title hopefuls. Next season, though, a week like this would've been its own sort of Hunger Games. It may have been nothing less than the future of college football.

Players that are thugs and criminals along with coaches that are narcistic, money and cheating, realigning every conference until all the old rivalries are no more (for money) and unbounded greed by college presidents and, best of all, the drive to PAY athletes. What's not to like? I have watched and loved college football for over fifty years. Now, I'm done.

Considering how depressing life is: the president is a pathological liar and thinks nothing of it, the economy is in the teetering of the edge of oblivion, societal corruption is everywhere, no one in the Western world is breeding and civilization rests on the outcome, feminazis continue attack the foundations of society and no one is doing anything about it.

College foot ball is the final bastion of manliness where young men dedicated to winning for the greater glory to the principal of winning can give you a few respites from living in the fall of Western Civilization.

I'll tell you why I enjoy college football; because it is a manly competition without quotas,mandates,and political correctness.I am sure the left will eventually make certain that colleges are only able to field teams made up of equal numbers of women,homosexuals,and various exotic minorities,but until they do,college football is a wonderful meritocracy as yet relatively unsullied by the mendacious forces of mediocrity that have come to hold hostage so many areas of our common endeavor.

I agree, Bill. Years ago we added high school football to our list of ball to watch. I think high school football is the best. For the most part, high school players are amateurs; not bought and paid for by boosters. Those kids are just happy to be on the field and they play their hearts out. But, sadly, that, too, is changing and being corrupted. But for a few more years..........

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